If the Command Center's Rockin'
by scarletalphabet
Summary: Strange vibrations are coming from the Command Center. Wash investigates.  Crackfic/humor.


**Title: **If the Command Center's Rockin'...

**Rating: **T

**Characters:** Wash, Taylor, mentions of most of the others

**Pairings:** Wash/Taylor sort of, vague Jim/Elisabeth stuff

**Summary: **Strange vibrations are coming from the Command Center. Wash investigates. Crackfic/humor.

**Note: **Am I the only one writing humor/crack and fluff before the finale? Sometimes slow days at work are nice. And unrelated, but all of a sudden I want to crack!ship Wash/Reilly. Oh, and song belongs to Neil Young I believe. For additional fun play spot the fandom and other stuff name-dropping.

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><p>Wash crept hesitantly up the stairs to Taylor's office, which he affectionately called the Command Center like it was the hub of some great battleship. It seemed to be pulsating slightly with an unknown kind of energy. She felt the vibrations sweep through her, something foreign but not dangerous. She couldn't quite put her finger on it, which was all the more off-putting. Wash liked it when she could give everything a name, a proper place in her sense of the order of the world. Even if it was only a fleeting illusion it made things easier to deal with. She drew her sidearm, using its tip to nudge the door open. Nothing.<p>

Her senses still on high alert, she swept the room, checking every nook and crevice as though it could be bigger on the inside. Hmm. Nobody. Nothing except for that clay dinosaur paperweight Zoe Shannon had made and insisted on the Commander keeping. A dino-desk indeed.

Seriously, hadn't paperweights gone out of style sometime in the 19th century? And Wash was pretty sure that not a single species of dinosaur could lay claim to such a spiraling tie-dye scale pattern. She made a mental note to ask Maddy Shannon though. That girl seemed to know everything about the flora and fauna of this place, even more than "Dr. Sweater Vest" Malcolm.

Wash slapped herself out of her stupor. Really, she wasn't here to pass judgment in some pissing contest about whose encyclopedic knowledge of dinosaurs was bigger. Between her and the desk though, all her money was riding on Maddy to win that one. "I mean," Wash mumbled. "She's probably seen Mark's 'terrible lizard' already while Malcolm's done nothing more than moon like an acne-infested 13 year old boy over the Good Doctor Shannon." Hmm...desk...riding. "Dammit Wash!" she shouted. "Get your shit together."

"Everything okay in there Lieutenant?" a voice called.

"It's fine Reilly," Wash answered. "Just thinking some deep thoughts in here."

"Don't hurt yourself then," Reilly teased.

That's it, someone just signed up for extra wind sprints and push ups at the next training session. Wash pulled a face and stuck her tongue out in the general direction of the other woman. She looked around the empty space one last time. Although shouldn't space, by definition, be empty (or at least not full)? If it was full then there wasn't any space to give it its label. Wash snorted. Yeah, leave that one for the philosophers and starship troopers to sort out.

Well if the sound wasn't coming from here, there was really only one other possible source. Her brow furrowed. But it didn't make sense. All those with access to The Eye had been sent a memo the previous evening that it would be closed for several hours today, well into the wee hours of tomorrow morning. There hadn't been a reason attached, but Wash figured it was some tech repair or such. Unless the technology involved was related to guns and ammo she didn't really pay attention to it.

Wash reholstered her weapon and slunk out of the room. Nodding to a smirking Reilly outside she darted down the stairs to the door to the subterranean lair room in question. The vibrations got stronger as she got closer. So she was right, it did have something to do with a throbbing liquid memory core. And if her well-trained ear was not mistaken, the thrum of electric bass and dizzying strums of guitar were in the air. While her musical talents tended more to the seedy karaoke bar and one-off drag king night end of things, her military career had focused her senses to pick up on many different types and layers of sound.

Wash quietly palmed the door open. "Well bust my buffer," she murmured. There stood Commander Nathaniel Taylor in all his tight black clothed glory. A rock concert occupied the entire wall in front of him, and he had somehow rigged the thing to display a neon blue guitar so he could actually play along. His muscles flexed as if he was actually holding an electric guitar. Wash felt a little drop of drool slip out of the corner of her mouth at the sight of those biceps straining in that skintight black tank top. Mindlessly her hand reached up to wipe it off with the back of her glove as she continued to watch.

_But there's a warning sign on the road ahead. There's a lot of people sayin' we'd be better off dead. Don't feel like Satan, but I am to them. So I try to forget it any way I can. _

Mein Gott the man could sing too. Wash whipped out the recording device Jim had given her to keep track of any suspicious behavior in the colony. Rules be damned, this was going on her tags. What Jim Shannon didn't stick his nosy face into wouldn't hurt him. Once she had sufficient blackmail and fantasy material she turned to the panel on the wall that controlled the power feed to the whole room and calmly flipped the switch.

"What the frak?" Taylor swore the instant everything went black.

Wash flicked one finger and the main lights came back on.

Taylor's head turned her direction so rapidly it almost kept right on going back to its original position. "Lieutenant?"

"Heard several reports of mysterious noises and vibrations coming from this direction sir. Seeing as everyone's favorite sheriff is too busy 'reconnecting' with his wife it fell to me to come investigate."

Taylor winced. "Oh those poor children. The housing's not exactly soundproof."

"Gave Reynolds permission to take Maddy and Zoe OTG for a field trip. Safer out there tonight I think, judging by the sounds of what I almost walked in on. Apparently tonight's theme is an interpretation of the slasher courtship ritual."

His wince deepened. "Oh the poor neighbors."

"Josh is treating them at Boylan's tonight in the name of getting to know them better."

He nodded. "Jim's got a good kid there."

"Yes," she concurred drolly. "Aren't we all just one big happy Shannon family. Shamily." She shifted from her relaxed position leaning against the wall. "But really sir, Neil Young?"

His eyebrows raised. "Lieutenant Washington, I _am_surprised. Never figured you for the type." He leaned back, morosely shoving his hands in the pockets of his stunning black pants. "Lucas sure wasn't. Always listening to Mozart and the like. He never could see the poetry in those lyrics. Always thought he was better than the rest of us for preferring those composers. Our relationship never was the same afterward."

She shrugged, ignoring the uncharacteristic emotional outpouring. "I'm not the type really. Heard 'After the Gold Rush' on the medical convoy coming back from Somalia. Seemed appropriate. It's just—" she stopped at Taylor's chuckle. "What?"

"The thought of my tough lieutenant as 'Flower Power' Alicia Washington..." he almost doubled over laughing, reaching back for support from the Eye's nest-like chair.

"Glad I could amuse sir." She gazed at him uncertainly after that speedy emotional turnaround. "What I'd rather know," she stressed, intent on forcibly derailing this conversation if necessary, "Is how you managed to make this thing do all that."

He straightened up. "Asked Boylan how. Don't know how all the technical junk works, but got it to do what I wanted so I didn't think too much about the details." He wiggled his hangs. "Must have magic fingers."

Wash bit back a moan. After a hard day at work or a mission OTG, to have those hands working out the kinks. In her muscles. In a purely therapeutic fashion of course. "So you told Boylan what you were going to be doing and no one else? For that and the hippie comment I think you owe me a drink sir."

"Not so fast Lieutenant. You're the one that disturbed my little setup here. And who says I spilled my secrets to our friendly neighborhood bartender? I think it is _you_who owes me. How does Sex on the Beach sound?"

"Uncomfortably sandy. Don't think you can distract me with sexual sophistry sir. I still say you're buying. And you should know I'm not the fruity drink kind of girl. Unless there are margaritas involved."

"Shots it is then. Whoever wins pays." He held out his arm for Wash to take.

Normally she would reject such an overly chivalrous and misogynistic gesture, but who could say no to those arms? She took hold of it and let him walk her out. Perhaps she could engineer some invisible obstacle to trip her up along the way. Wash wasn't above cheap tricks when they were justifiable.


End file.
